If only the time suck were the lone problem. Running also has undermined the mayor's gravitas—he is continuously mocked for the hopelessness of the effort—and his credibility, because he bends the truth and the rules in a desperate bid for relevance.

It also causes conflicts of interest, such as his seeking of support from the sanitation workers union while negotiating a contract with it, as silive.com reported, and raising money from entities doing or seeking city business. The city forbids such gifts to a local campaign—a law the mayor ostensibly agrees with even as he violates its spirit to pay for his cross-country jaunts.

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Abusing another loophole, de Blasio accepted $234,000 from 37 donors who had previously given the maximum legal amount to his campaign, Politico found. He'd raised the cash purportedly to help state Democrats, then spent it on himself. He even used the state account to pay for his presidential campaign-launch video. In a scene out of Animal Farm, his campaign said the $20,000 video was not a campaign expense.

"He's a walking ethical disaster, constantly looking for loopholes and ways to skirt the intent of our city's campaign finance laws, and now he's lifting the same strategies up to the federal level," Susan Lerner, executive director of good-government group Common Cause New York, told Gothamist. One solicitation he sent via a message-encrypting app to Orthodox Jews "implies the donations would yield favorable treatment in the future," Politico wrote upon having translated it from the Yiddish.

On the campaign trail, de Blasio can't stop exaggerating, if not outright fabricating. "I'm proud to say in New York, we've divested $5 billion from the oil companies," he bragged in Iowa, according to Politico. In fact, the city only has plans to study the issue.

In a bizarre attempt to jumpstart his flagging campaign, de Blasio said he'd "tax the hell out of the rich," exhibiting a vitriolic glee that even supporters of the idea don't have and burning whatever remnants of a relationship he had with his wealthy constituents.

Perhaps because of his White House bid, the mayor seems more reluctant than ever to admit fault. When the news broke that the city police helped his daughter move, he would not confirm it, saying he wasn't there. But his daughter and wife were. He didn't ask them?

All of these failings are ones de Blasio accuses Donald Trump of having. In making a case against the president, he is doing the same for himself.

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